The Damndest Thing
by The Gemini Sage
Summary: The moment in 5.18 where Dean changed his mind. Can be taken as gen or Sam/Dean. Spoilers for everything up to that episode!


**Notes:** This is the coda to 5.18 that just wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. Gen or Sam/Dean, depending on where you're standing and which pair of goggles you have on. Spoilers for everything up to 5.18 and nothing after. I wrote this right after the episode aired and put it up on LJ ages ago, but I'm just now getting it around to this site...anyway, I hope you enjoy!

**The Damndest Thing**

_You know, when you bite dust, they say your life flashes before your eyes._

Dean's standing in the beautiful room, literally cornered by Heaven's biggest corporate dick. His brothers are hemorrhaging on the floor, and he's got nowhere left to run, nothing left to give, and he's so goddamn tired of watching the people he loves get hurt for him and killed for him that he finally says yes.

_Sam's standing at the door of the motel room where Dean wrote his suicide note, twisting his lockpick in his hands, looking sadder than Dean's seen him in a long time. _

_"How'd you find me?" Dean breathes. _

_"Well, you're gonna kill yourself, right?" Sam slips the lockpick in his pocket. "It's not too hard to figure out the stops on the farewell tour."_

_"I'm not gonna kill myself," Dean says, looking away and then back again. _

_"No?" Sam raised his eyebrows. "So Michael's not about to make you his Muppet?" _

_Dean takes another drink. A long one._

_"What the hell, man?" Sam whispers. "This is how it ends? You just...walk out?" _

_The drink's gone. Dean picks the bottle back up, starts refilling the glass. "Yeah," he says dully, and he doesnt meet Sam's eyes. "Yeah, I guess."_

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Zachariah asks, raising a hand to his ear.

"Okay, yes" Dean spits, fighting everything in him that wants to give up and break down. In just a few more minutes, he won't have to fight anything-not ever again. Michael will jump his bones and then...everything will be over. It'll just be _over_.

"The answer is yes," Dean says weakly.

_Sam is eight and too grown up, and his hand is outstretched, holding out an impossible gift that's not Dean's to take. "Dad lied to me. I want you to have it."_

_"Are you sure?"_

_Sam's eyes meet his. "I'm sure."_

Sam is on the floor clutching his stomach, blood spilling over his lips. "Dean," he breathes.

Dean swallows and ignores his brother. He has to. He gave Sam fair warning, after all. Fair warning.

"Do you hear me?" he shouts at Zachariah, hands clenching into fists. This is taking too long, it's taking too _long_. "Call Michael down, you bastard-" And he chokes on what's not quite a sob as he forces it past his lips. He looks away, down to the floor. Sam's still looking at him, and he just can't bear it.

_Sam's thirteen and looking at him with nothing but adoration in his eyes, the way he never looks at their father. "Dad would _never _let us do something like this. Thanks, Dean. This is great." And his arms are tight around Dean, holding on like he never wants to let go. _

"How do I know you're not lying?" Zachariah asks Dean suspiciously.

"Do I look I'm lying?" Dean snaps.

_Sam's driving the Impala, unaware of the semi about to slam into them and change their lives forever. Dad says hunting the demon comes before everything, and Sam meets Dean's eyes in the rearview mirror, his own gaze defiant and protective and loving, and says, "No sir. Not before everything."_

And Zachariah turns around to start the summoning.

It's almost over now.

_When you bite dust, they say your life flashes before your eyes._

Dean's looking around the room desperately, wishing it was already over, dread settling heavily in his chest. He can't look at Sam. He can't see the disappointment on his brother's face.

And then he _has_ to, because he's thinking, _This could be the last time I ever-_

_Sam's fresh back from being dead, and his eyes are steady and sure when he says fiercely, "You're my big brother. There's _nothing _I wouldn't do for you."_

Sam's still hurting. He's still holding his stomach, and with good reason; Dean knows what the fourth stage of stomach cancer feels like and it's not fun. He looks at Dean and Dean has to meet his eyes and it's all wrong.

Sam doesn't look sure anymore.

_Sam's angry at Dean for not caring and he's shouting at him like he's been wanting to do for too long. Shouting about how he's been following Dean around his entire life, been looking up to Dean since he was four, studying him, trying to be just like his big brother. "So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world."_

_Dean can't believe what he's hearing, but Sam keeps going and going. _

_And then Sam says, "I wish you would just be my brother again."_

Dean's let Sam down before, but not like this. Never like this. If there was another way, any other way...he'd never do this to Sam. Never hurt him like this. All his life he's been dedicated to protecting him, keeping him alive and safe. From the moment he pulled Sam out of the burning house and Lawrence and told him _it's okay Sam _when he could see their mother burning up on the ceiling through the window, that's been his job.

_Sam's just been through who knows how many Tuesdays, and when he sees Dean, he's so clearly fighting tears Dean is alarmed. Sam gets up and in a few quick strides he's hugging Dean hard enough to hurt._

_"How many Tuesdays did you have?" Dean asks, bewildered._

_"Enough," says Sam, and his arms are tight around Dean again, holding on like he never wants to let go._

Dean's killed for Sam, and he's died for Sam. He's loved him enough to lock him up and he's loved him enough to let him go. All his life he's put Sam first, and he just-he _can't_ anymore, he's just too tired. He's said it before; claimed he was done. But each time he's dug way down deep and somehow found something else to give. This time, though, he means it. He's done. It's over.

This is more permanent than suicide; this is oblivion.

_They say your life flashes before your eyes._

Sam's looking at him with the most broken disappointment Dean's ever seen on his face. And all Dean think is, _It's over. It's over, and I'm never gonna see him again._

He's scared.

_Sam's sitting in the panic room he rotted in once telling Dean when push shoves, he'll make the right call. "You're still my big brother." One look at his eyes and Dean knows he believes it. _

_There's a long silence. "Are you sure?" Dean asks. _

_Sam's eyes meet his. "I'm sure."_

_He always has been._

Sam's laying on the floor and he's hurting and Dean's just watching and not doing a damn thing about it. And Sam's still _looking_ at him, like he's trying to tell Dean something words can't quite express-

And suddenly Dean _gets_ it.

_One look at his eyes and Dean knows he believes it. _

_Sam's the one with faith; he always has been. If not in God, then something more sure. _

_In Dean._

Dean freezes, looking back, and Sam turns his head away, coughing up more blood. Dean knows somehow he's still relying on his brother to get him out of trouble.

_God, this stupid son of a bitch _brought_ me here. After I gave him fair warning..._

Dean blinks, and that is the moment where he is struck very suddenly by the fact that it is not over, and he cannot say yes. Not will not, not doesn't want to, but _can't_. He can't say yes because Sam's laying on the floor waiting for him to say no, for him to be the big brother again, for Dean to mouth off to the bad guy with the same cocksure attitude he's always had.

_Dean's looking at Dean, at a another, harder, angrier Dean that he doesn't understand and doesn't want to become. "Sam didn't die in Detroit. He said yes."_

_Dean's world shrinks down to fit on the head of a pin. "Why would he do that?"_

_The other Dean shrugs. Cold, uncaring. He's already dead inside. _

_"Wish I knew."_

_Later, Dean will tell Zachariah, with all the bravado in the world, "Oh, I learned a lesson all right. Just not the one you wanted to teach."_

Even now, Sam still believes in him.

_"A few people share. Special cases, whatnot."_

_"What do you mean special?"_

_"Oh, you know, like soulmates."_

"He's coming," Zachariah says, and Dean thinks, _You won't be here to see it._

Dean gives Sam a small, fond smile. Because _I can't not see you again_ and _you still believe in me _and then he winks, big brother saying _it's okay Sam _again, and he sees the confusion and guarded hope come back to Sam's eyes.

He turns back to Zachariah, standing a little straighter, and when he next speaks, his bravado is back, he's _Dean_ again, and Zachariah's already counting his life in seconds.

They're driving in a stolen pickup on a long abandoned two-lane road when Sam says, "So."

"So what?" Dean asks warily.

"I _saw_ your eyes," Sam says. "You were totally rocking the yes back there. So...what changed your mind?"

Dean glances over at him, then back to the road.

"Honestly?" he says, and he almost smiles. "The damndest thing."


End file.
